Intelligence Support Activity
| Last= | Appearance= | Latest= | Leader= | Purpose=Eliminate threats to national security | Connection= The Machine | Status=Inactive }} The U.S. Army Intelligence Support Activity (ISA) or The Activity is a special operations unit which collects "actionable" intelligence in preparation for activities by other special operations units, particularly those related to counter-terrorism missions. Elements of the unit were involved in intelligence gathering and analysis prior to the killing of Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar, the capture of Saddam Hussein and the mission which resulted in the death of Osama Bin Laden. ISA missions are generally identified by two-word code names. Famously, the mission that included Hussein's capture was known as Grey Fox. The ISA on Person of Interest In the Person of Interest universe, the ISA's main task is to gather the intelligence needed to eliminate threats to national security. According to John Reese, the ISA is "an obscure unit that does black-ops so dark, technically they don't exist". Their budget is confidential but stretches back five years when large amounts of money were coded to a project called "Northern Lights", which actually was the development of the Machine. Nuclear engineer Daniel Aquino was hired to build a facility that could host the Machine under the code name "Research" as part of a larger project known only as the "Program". After, Vigilance leaked classified black budget reports involving Northern Lights and other classifed programs, the government agencies severed ties with it thus ending the Intellgence Support Activity. (" Most Likely To…") With Samaritan active, Research 2.0 was created, under the supervision of Control. Research Research is the Program's name for the Machine. As with Finch and Reese, Research sends the Social Security Numbers of people who are involved in activities threatening national security. According to the operatives who act on its data, it is never wrong. Operatives believe that the numbers originate in Guantanamo or other places after torture. As far as they are concerned, "Research" is a secret group working out of an unknown location. Missions are assigned by Control, and apparently known only to Special Counsel and Hersh. Research 2.0 Research 2.0 is the successor to the original Program, but operatives receive intelligence from Samaritan, which they identify as Research 2.0, rather than the The Machine. Orders are given to Intelligence Support Activity operatives in the form of kill orders only. This differs from the original Program, during which operatives were allowed to investigate their target. On one occasion, Research 2.0 changed the objectives of its operators, primarily to benefit Samaritan. History Before 2009 *Daniel Aquino was hired to build a storage facility for a project coded as "Northern Lights". 2010 *ISA sent their new operative Sameen Shaw to kill Rick Dillinger in order to eliminate The Laptop after Daniel Casey used it to hack into The Machine. 2011 *After being framed for receiving payments from Hezbollah, Sameen Shaw and Michael Cole were sent to San Jose to assassinate Aquino. 2012 *ISA operatives led by Fox tracked down an NSA analyst by the name of Henry Peck who discovered that reports he had submitted had been edited to included "relevant" numbers identified by the machine before being sent to his superiors. ISA operatives were tasked with killing Peck and erasing all evidence regarding the Machine. However, John Reese stepped in killing the ISA operatives. Peck later deduced that someone had built The Machine and Finch verified it, unaware that Alicia Corwin was listening in. Finch provided a new identify and funding to help Peck disappear. *After the murder of Alicia Corwin, Hersh is sent into the NYPD 8th Precinct to erase and destroy the case files/evidence relating to the murder investigation. *ISA operatives are seen disposing of the body of Denton Weeks after Root murdered him in order to get information about The Machine. 2013 *Michael Cole became suspicious of the numbers they were receiving from "Research" and made what he believed to be discreet inquiries. Cole and Shaw were set up by Wilson after they were deemed to be a threat to the project when Cole figured out that Aquino had been framed and killed because he knew too much. Cole was killed and Shaw was shot but escaped with the aid of Reese *Ordered to kill Owen Matthews, even if it meant destroying the commercial jet he was traveling in, operative Indigo-6A was stopped by Reese after 2 brutal fights. 2014 *ISA operatives conducted direct operations against the organizations known as Vigilance and Decima Technologies.(" Deus Ex Machina"). The program was temporarily suspended by Control upon the disclosure of Northern Lights to the general public. Worldmapper Travel The ISA keeps a storefront disguised as a travel agency named Worldmapper Travel which is run by a man named Foster. Shaw claims to have received a hundred travel itineraries sending her to different countries where she completed a mission. Foster is also the one who knows where ISA teams are currenlty dispatched since he books their travel. Known members Real-life Counterpart *The real-life counterpart of the ISA is sometimes known as the "Activity". Its name changes periodically because of the secretive nature of their work. *Unlike its civilian counterparts such as the CIA, NSA, or the US Military DIA, the ISA is a Special Operations Unit that specialize in gathering actionable intelligence, both from human sources (HUMINT) and from signals such as electronic communication (SIGINT) to help pave the way for special operations conducted for their fellow Tier-1 partners such as U.S. Army Delta Force or U.S. Navy SEAL Team Six. * Operations which the ISA conducts are often so secretive and in the black that even the CIA or NSA themselves can not/will not do them. *ISA also has a direct action arm, similar to the CIA's elite Special Activities Division's SOG teams. It is made up of (but not all) former Delta Force, Army Special Forces, Rangers, Army Intelligence, and Army Civil Affairs. Female operators mostly come from Military Intelligence and Civil Affairs. They are the unit's "shooters" conducting covert special operations all around the world, often deploying alongside their brother Tier-1 units. * Like other units of JSOC, the ISA is free to recruit members of different military branches to help augment their operational capabilities. Hence why individuals such as Sameen Shaw being recruited from the Marine Corps into an Army unit is not that far fetched. Category:Organization Category:U.S. Government